CLAIM
A viral message on WhatsApp claims the ‘Department of Home Affairs’ has issued a warning about a group of people who are pretending to be from the Department, carrying letterhead papers and are asking people whether they have valid IDs for the upcoming elections. The intention of these pretenders is to rob people, the message reads.
The viral message reads:
"They have documents with the letterhead Department of Home Affairs and claim to be confirming that everyone has a valid ID for the upcoming elections. They are robbing homes."
The claim is also quite viral on platforms like Facebook for quite a while.
A variation of this message also claims that the warning was issued by the Kolkata Police.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The fact that a warning was issued is correct. But, it was not in India.
The warning was actually issued by the government of South Africa on 20 October 2017, alerting the citizens to be wary of a group of imposters who were posing as Department of Home Affairs personnel and attempting to rob homes.
Further, the Home Affairs department in India is referred to as the ‘Ministry of Home Affairs’, and not ‘Department of Home Affairs.’
Meanwhile, the Kolkata Police too confirmed that the message being attributed to them was false, denying that they had issued any such statement.
NO JUST INDIA, BUT MALAYSIA AND SINGAPORE TOO
This fake news about people pretending to be from the Home Affairs Ministry is not just spreading around India. The same had earlier occurred in Singapore and Malaysia as well. The Straits Times exposed Singapore to this news while The Star Online did the same for Malaysia.
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